I brought a hut to the burn this past year, and I forgot to bring my spine pieces (derp). I was so infuriated that i'd set my hut most of the way up before realizing my mistake, I was like IMMA MAKE IT WORK. so i did. I used rope instead of the pvc spine. With some rebar that our neighbors let us borrow (bless their souls) for anchors, we tied it taught between each rib individually, then tied the sides taught to the anchors. Then by a stroke of brilliance by my brother, we attached another tarp to one side that sort of sailed in the wind and stayed poofed up (we put our one bed under this tarp) and we held that tarp down with our 5 gallon water jugs and a spare tire.

This thread is really long so I'm not going to read it. as such, dunno if anyone else has said this. Make sure your hut is positioned against the wind correctly. Wind, as a general rule will USUALLY be blowing from SSE to NNW. As such, you'll want the openings of your hut to be poined towards NEE and SWW. If you're bringing a car, which you probably are, park that thing south of your monkey hut.

Oh, and one last note: not to sound condescending but I don't know how much you know about tarps but other people may read this as well and it's something I learned the hard way, since I'm just some dumb kid. Anyways, you may need to adjust your pvc lengths to better suit your tarps, since some tarps that advertise a slightly higher size than their actual size, and it's important that your tarps go low to the ground if not touching when set up.

Got my Monkey Hut (thanks MDF) and am going to upgrade from the silver aluminet to the 90% shade cloth that Tamara uses. But that means I now have this extra aluminet... what to do with it? I was thinking of attaching it to the back of the money hut and then tying to to the side of the box truck. Give us a bit of an annex at the back of the MH. However I can see various problems with this:

1. might the extra pressure on the MH cause it to fail (probably not?)2. can you tie stuff to the side of the Box Truck (I have no idea whether the std ones have side rails - what say you Junglesmacks?)3. stuff I haven't thought of yet.

Got my Monkey Hut (thanks MDF) and am going to upgrade from the silver aluminet to the 90% shade cloth that Tamara uses. But that means I now have this extra aluminet... what to do with it? I was thinking of attaching it to the back of the money hut and then tying to to the side of the box truck. Give us a bit of an annex at the back of the MH. However I can see various problems with this:

1. might the extra pressure on the MH cause it to fail (probably not?)2. can you tie stuff to the side of the Box Truck (I have no idea whether the std ones have side rails - what say you Junglesmacks?)3. stuff I haven't thought of yet.

Any views dear people?

Let's make a frame to support it - we are well overdue a design session where we forget to write shit down, get hopelessly pissed and sweary and forget our good ideas...

Got my Monkey Hut (thanks MDF) and am going to upgrade from the silver aluminet to the 90% shade cloth that Tamara uses. But that means I now have this extra aluminet... what to do with it? I was thinking of attaching it to the back of the money hut and then tying to to the side of the box truck. Give us a bit of an annex at the back of the MH. However I can see various problems with this:

1. might the extra pressure on the MH cause it to fail (probably not?)2. can you tie stuff to the side of the Box Truck (I have no idea whether the std ones have side rails - what say you Junglesmacks?)3. stuff I haven't thought of yet.

Any views dear people?

Let's make a frame to support it - we are well overdue a design session where we forget to write shit down, get hopelessly pissed and sweary and forget our good ideas...

Got my Monkey Hut (thanks MDF) and am going to upgrade from the silver aluminet to the 90% shade cloth that Tamara uses. But that means I now have this extra aluminet... what to do with it? I was thinking of attaching it to the back of the money hut and then tying to to the side of the box truck. Give us a bit of an annex at the back of the MH. However I can see various problems with this:

1. might the extra pressure on the MH cause it to fail (probably not?)2. can you tie stuff to the side of the Box Truck (I have no idea whether the std ones have side rails - what say you Junglesmacks?)3. stuff I haven't thought of yet.

Any views dear people?

Let's make a frame to support it - we are well overdue a design session where we forget to write shit down, get hopelessly pissed and sweary and forget our good ideas...

Theraplst wrote:...Anyways, you may need to adjust your pvc lengths to better suit your tarps, since some tarps that advertise a slightly higher size than their actual size, and it's important that your tarps go low to the ground if not touching when set up.

I thought the conventional wisdom was to leave a gap, say six inches, so you have air flow to let the heat & dust out...

Jar Jar Sith Lord.Odd. No bears in the dump. Oh well, lets go across the road & pick blueberries..... but don't harm the red dragon that frequents the area from time to time. He and I have an agreement.

I had the brilliant idea to cut the 10' PVC ribs into 5' sections - thus enabling me to put them in the back of my hybrid. The idea being that I would "glue" them together using standard couplings after arriving in BRC. The couplings failed almost as soon as I started bending them and this was after a long time letting the glue dry. Extra reinforcing sections and a LOT of zip ties later I got my version of the hut standing.

North South orientation with the car on the south end helped. A tight tarp and an air gap between the tarp and the ground was helpful.

This year I am thinking Tipi and a pickup.

The next morning you will wake up pretty much your old self except that a very unusual 16 hours will have been added to your store of life experience.

Oh BeeWeeDee, cutting the pipes into 5' sections works great,that's what I do, but I use 2.5' sections of pipe (1/4" larger) to connect them together. This is a technique I learned on this Board from Bluemandrew. I absolutely recommend it, especially as I then wind up with an eyebolt at the center of each connector, which gives me a place to hang stuff and rig a clothes-line.

"You can be whoever you want to be, and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully they don't really care."

The 2.5 foot connectors work great! and I am using rubber strips to lash the spine on. Very quick and very forgiving for my design changes during this trial set up. What is the direction of the prevailing wind? With back packing tents the logic is to put the opening into the oncoming wind, it fills up your tent and keeps it blown up and minimizes flapping and compressing of your tent.

What does not kill me makes for great campfire stories.Be Good,Frizzboom Dinkdoodle

Frizzboom wrote:The 2.5 foot connectors work great! and I am using rubber strips to lash the spine on. Very quick and very forgiving for my design changes during this trial set up. What is the direction of the prevailing wind? With back packing tents the logic is to put the opening into the oncoming wind, it fills up your tent and keeps it blown up and minimizes flapping and compressing of your tent.

I am glad that your plans & testing of your Monkey Hut have been good

I am not sure what the consensus is, but I like to have my tent entrance in the lee of the wind. So that a super-strong gust probably will not tear the tent entrance zippers apart. Last year we had 70Mph (112Km) wind gusts pre-event and I think there were some 50Mph (80Km) wind gusts during Burning Man. (the weather can be quite unpredictable and it is best to plan for wind gusts higher than 70Mph, just because!!) - This will also reduce the amount of dust that ends up in your tent during a dust storm (reduce, not eliminate - the dust will be everywhere and in/on everything)

Prevailing winds are southwesterly, often strong and gusty. Winds can blow in one direction at Black Rock Airport, and another direction on the wide-open playa. Summer storms are common. Dust devils are numerous, even on calm days.

Some years there is hardly any wind and minimal to non-existent dust storms, other years there have been storms every day. My first burn we had dust storms that lasted up to 12 hours straight. I am not trying to scare, but to lay the foundation for realistic expectations. (ie: always have some goggles and a dust mask of some form with you!) It is not always possible to anticipate a dust storm and best to assume one will happen any second. Exploring and meeting people during a storm has always been a highlight for me

Love Rice

Roach: "I feel like in this day and age, every girl should know how to build a flamethrower."

Great, appreciate the support, we are trying to test as much of the stuff as we can, we will be doing a dust test with a blow machine and 200 lbs of flour mixed with baseball field chalk, I am going to line up the family and blow it at them for 2 hours. It is part of our Burning Man Training Plan (BM TP), we are also riding our cruiser bikes around the house with drinks in our hand, lighting the bathrooms with EL wires, pb&j for two meals each day, no bathing for 5 days each week, dubstep music is on 24/7, and the heater is set for 98 degrees. Let me know if I missed anything.

What does not kill me makes for great campfire stories.Be Good,Frizzboom Dinkdoodle

Ditto what Figjam said. And pictures. And maybe a contingency plan for when the guys with the butterfly nets show-up.

Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care NOT who writes this nation’s laws. ... S.J. Perelman

Frizz, I respectfully suggest those were *hatracks*, but I do like your style!

Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care NOT who writes this nation’s laws. ... S.J. Perelman

I had the brilliant idea to cut the 10' PVC ribs into 5' sections - thus enabling me to put them in the back of my hybrid. The idea being that I would "glue" them together using standard couplings after arriving in BRC. The couplings failed almost as soon as I started bending them and this was after a long time letting the glue dry. Extra reinforcing sections and a LOT of zip ties later I got my version of the hut standing.

North South orientation with the car on the south end helped. A tight tarp and an air gap between the tarp and the ground was helpful.

This year I am thinking Tipi and a pickup.

The 5' sections can work!! I needed to use 5' sections also, but I connected them with a 2 foot pvc sleeve (I used 1inch pvc for the ribs so the sleeve connecting the 5' sections was 1 and 1/4 inch pvc) that had a screw in the center so it wouldn't slide up and down the rib. This worked beautifully, my hut held up perfectly from Sunday gates to Monday Exodus, never even had to make an adjustment. I also used this monkey hut plan which is pretty simply because you don't have to deal with T and X connectors http://www.maxicon.com/Burning_Man/PVC_ ... _playa.htm

Frizzboom wrote:Great, appreciate the support, we are trying to test as much of the stuff as we can, we will be doing a dust test with a blow machine and 200 lbs of flour mixed with baseball field chalk, I am going to line up the family and blow it at them for 2 hours. It is part of our Burning Man Training Plan (BM TP), we are also riding our cruiser bikes around the house with drinks in our hand, lighting the bathrooms with EL wires, pb&j for two meals each day, no bathing for 5 days each week, dubstep music is on 24/7, and the heater is set for 98 degrees. Let me know if I missed anything.

Thanks for all your great posts....so now I find myself adding my 2 cents...hmmmm, with the on-set of computers vs typewriters, I have lost the easy "cent" sign ~ alas I wonder...anyway, what I use is T-posts.

I purchased a post-hole pounder & pound the stakes in (not too deep), and use them for supports. I have always found this to stand up wonderfully in the winds....and at home, during winter they are "re-purposed" to reinforce my wood pile...essentially, the T-stakes have a summer & winter purpose.

I like the idea of using shade cloth instead of tarps...never heard of the other stuff. We were gifted a parachute, and I am working on the best way to design a "center" pole, and have the ends attached to vehicles & such. The center pole (of what ever make) would essentially lift the parachute up enough so as to not feel trapped...I'm thinking a few feet higher then a mobile home roof...

Any & all help appreciated...

Lady LaneCamp: It Is What It Is or "IIWII" on some of our "signs"5-6 & E-G is the general area!Come say hi <;0)

Make sure you get the water/food safe pipe. That way you can fill them up with vodka and smuggle it in. They never suspect a thing. oopswrong event...never mind

Jar Jar Sith Lord.Odd. No bears in the dump. Oh well, lets go across the road & pick blueberries..... but don't harm the red dragon that frequents the area from time to time. He and I have an agreement.